Passenger vehicles, such as automobiles and aircraft often provide vehicle information systems, such as passenger entertainment systems, to satisfy passenger demand for entertainment and other information content during travel.
Conventional vehicle information systems typically include video display systems, such as overhead cabin display systems or seatback display systems, and audio presentation systems, such as overhead speaker systems or headphones, for presenting viewing content. Individual controls also can be provided at the passenger seats for selecting viewing content for presentation. Including audio and video materials, the viewing content can be derived from a variety of content sources. For example, prerecorded viewing content, such as motion pictures and music, can be provided by internal sources, such as audio and video players, that are installed in the vehicle. The conventional vehicle information systems likewise can include antenna and receiver systems for receiving viewing content, such as live television programming, transmitted from one or more external content providers (or sources).
Such conventional vehicle information systems, however, suffer from many disadvantages. Turning to FIG. 1, for instance, an illustrative vehicle information system 100 is shown as having at least one content source 110 and a plurality of passenger interfaces 120, which are configured to communicate via a distribution system (or network) 130. The distribution system 130 includes at least one communication connection (or bus) 140 for coupling the content sources 110 and the passenger interfaces 120 as well as one or more conventional passive splitter (or switching) systems 150. Each splitter system 150 is configured to divide the communication connections 140 into a plurality of separate communication sub-connections, such as first and second communication connections 140A, 140B. Stated somewhat differently, each splitter system 150 separates the individual communication lines that comprise the communication connection 140 into two groups of communication lines. The first communication connection 140A includes those communication lines in one group; whereas, the communication lines in the other group form the second communication connection 1403.
As shown in FIG. 1, the splitter system 150 includes an input (or common) communication port 152 and a plurality of output ports 154. The input communication port 152 is configured to couple with the selected content source 110; whereas, each output port 154 couples with one or more associated passenger interface systems 120. The splitter system 150 of FIG. 1 is illustrated as routing each of the first communication connections 140A to a first output port 154A and each of the second communication connections 140B to a second output port 154B. Since the passenger interface systems 120 communicate with the selected content source 110 by way of the splitter system 150, the passenger interface systems 120A, 120B of FIG. 1 communicate with the selected content source 110 via the first and second communication connections 140A, 140B, respectively. Each passenger interface system 120 therefore is limited to communicating with the selected content source 110 via only a fraction of the communication connection 140 such that the bandwidth capability at each passenger seat is reduced.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists for an improved vehicle information system that overcomes the aforementioned obstacles and deficiencies of currently-available vehicle information systems.
It should be noted that the figures are not drawn to scale and that elements of similar structures or functions are generally represented by like reference numerals for illustrative purposes throughout the figures. It also should be noted that the figures are only intended to facilitate the description of the preferred embodiments of the present disclosure. The figures do not describe every aspect of the present disclosure and do not limit the scope of the disclosure.